SAHIWAL: A teenage girl was gang-raped allegedly by robbers during a road robbery in the presence of her relative family near village Malik Rahmoo in Pakpattan between the nights of Sunday and Monday.

A resident of Bahawalnagar was on a visit to family friends in Pakpattan along with his wife, a son and a minor daughter, a sister and a 17-year-old niece when the incident happened.

The family left for Pakpattan in their car at noon on Sunday. They first went to Mustaqeem Jhonka village to offer condolences on the death of the father of a family friend. Later, they visited another family friend at Mohalla Abdullah Shah of Pakpattan.

After dinner at around 11pm, the family left for Bahawalnagar in their car. On their way back near Malik Rahmoo village, their car was intercepted by four unidentified armed suspects on two motorcycles in the middle of a village road.

The man was driving the car and his son was in the passenger seat while his wife, daughter, sister and the teenage niece were sitting in the back seat.

Bahawalnagar family was on visit to Pakpattan when incident happened

The suspects first snatched mobile phones and car keys from them. They offloaded the women from the car and snatched cash and gold ornaments from them.

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After about 20 minutes, two armed suspects took the man’s niece to the roadside maize fields where they gang-raped her while their two companions held the family hostage by the roadside. Despite the girl’s cries for help, the family was unable to save her.

The incident in the Saddar police area of Pakpattan lasted for 50 minutes, including 35 minutes of torture and gang rape, but there was nobody to help the family. The girl was crying for help but neither her uncle nor her aunts could save her.

The suspects deprived the family of Rs67,000 cash, two mobile phones and gold ornaments worth Rs70,000.

After the robbery and gang-rape, the suspects threw the car keys on the road and fled.

The family went to a nearby farmhouse whose owner called police emergency 15. Police reached the crime scene after an hour, visited the site and collected evidence.

The victim girl was shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital, Pakpattan, for a medical examination.

Saddar Police registered a case under Section 391 (robbery) and Section 375/A (gang rape) of the PPC against the four unidentified suspects based on a complaint of the victim’s aunt, a resident of Chowk Fidai Shah of Bahawalnagar district, who was also in the car.

District Police Officer Tariq Wallayat told Dawn the police had formed three investigation teams under the CIA, SP Investigation Shahida Noreen, and some undercover officers.

He said the girl was sent home after counselling and claimed that the Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) teams and police had got an important lead in the case and the arrests would be made soon.

Regional Police Officer Mahboob Rashid also visited the crime scene and met the victim family. He assured the family all the suspects would be arrested.

The Pakpattan incident reminded of the motorway gang-rape incident in 2020 which happened after a Pakistan-origin French woman’s car had run out of gas near Lahore on the M-4 and two men — Abid Malhi and Shafqat Ali Bagga — broke into their car, robbed them and gang-raped the woman in front of her children.

(Names have been withheld to protect privacy of the rape victim and her family.)

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2024